ABC Flip-Flops on #ObamaAteADog

21 Apr 2012

ABC went from promoting the “Dog Wars” to declaring the issue dead within 24 hours. Actually, their flip-flop on the issue took about 14 hours.

Diane Sawyer, in her interview with Mitt and Anne Romney, quizzed the pair about the now infamous family vacation in 1983 where the Romney’s put their family dog on top of their car because it had “the runs.” The left loved this issue. Web sites promoting “Dog Lovers Against Romney” have sprouted up and Democrats united behind this issue, hoping to get the “Dog Vote” for their Dear Leader. There is even an anti-Romney SuperPAC that has cropped up to take on the dog issue. Sawyer jumped right in. Tuesday night on World News Tonight she led with the burning question that America was foaming at the mouth to hear about, Seamus the Dog on top of the car.

DIANE SAWYER: First about Seamus– which as you know is out there forever– would you do it again?

MITT ROMNEY: Certainly not with the attention it’s received.

DIANE SAWYER: You said it was the most wounding thing in the campaign–

ANN ROMNEY: It’s crazy.

DIANE SAWYER:–so far.

ANN ROMNEY: The dog loved it. The dog was, like–

DIANE SAWYER: But the dog got sick, right?

No, I’ll tell you what is sick ABC, that you are still bringing up this foolish issue. But, not to worry, the Dog Wars were soon dead.

Late Tuesday brought the news that really rocked this Presidential Race. The Romney campaign deftly pointed out that Barack Obama had actually eaten dog while he lived in Indonesia as a child.

You wanna bring up dog? Let’s bring up dog.

Twitter exploded with #ObamaAteDog and #ObamaDogRecipies and even the Activist Old Media had to realize that their Dear Leader was in trouble on this issue. The jokes are everywhere, my favorite is this one: “Don’t worry, Obama would never put a dog on top of his car, it dries out the meat.”

By Wednesday morning, George Stephanopoulos went on GMA and joked and laughed about the Dog Wars and declared the issue dead. He could never say Obama ate dog, he said he “tasted” it and he “tried” it, but couldn’t bring himself to actually say the words, “Obama ate dog.” You could tell he hated doing this story as he stuttered and stammered his way through the teze and the story, “maybe this will cycle through quickly,” George pleaded to John Karl after his report on the Dog Wars. I dunno George, you’re on air 6 days a week over there at ABC, won’t you decide which stories live or die? You have a full hour on Sunday to dig deep into this. Perhaps you can even ask Obama about it next time you get an exclusive interview. It seemed to be such a big issue not that long ago.

Clearly, the only reason ABC (and I’m sure the others) feel this is suddenly a non-story is that it is now a liability to Obama. How quickly they cry uncle when their guy is in the arm-lock. Hell, this was a Rampage Jackson rear naked choke.

ABC’s Jake Tapper, to his credit, jumped on the story as soon as he spotted the beauty of the beast here. How delicious for a reporter to find a story that one side has been using for months to try to destroy a candidate, then watch it blow up in their face in a matter of moments. This story was on Tappers blog, not on the network news. Big difference between the two, but Jake deserves credit for not being a lap dog (sorry, that was too easy.)